Vegetable Tortures
by windborne
Summary: Temari has devised a plan to make Gaara eat cauliflower! Gaara, put that sand back under wraps NOW. You're not supposed to kill your sister.


Vegetable Tortures

"Why must I come along… get Gaara to accompany you instead…" Kankuro whined as Temari firmly dragged him through the sliding doors of the supermarket. "Gaara has enough to do, he's the Kazekage. Now, shut up and come along before I deck you with my fan," the blond kunoichi ordered. Kankuro whimpered and complained, but his older sister remained steadfast.

It was time to do the weekly grocery shopping, and once again, Temari was stuck with the chore. Gaara had no idea what constituted a proper meal, and Kankuro was just too lazy. However, there was a large difference this time.

Temari had gotten tired of suffering alone, and had decided that Kankuro could come along and carry the bags for her. Her reasoning was that if she had to choose the vegetables and meat, AND cook everything, he could at least help her lift and carry.

Thus, for the first time in years, Kankuro the puppet master was seen entering a supermarket, grumbling all the way about how embarrassing it was.

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"What type of vegetable should I get, Kankuro?" Temari pondered, tapping her finger on the cold plastic of a bin which held broccoli. "Get potato chips." He replied instantly. Temari frowned, poking his stomach hard. "Aren't you fat enough already? Don't you want a girlfriend? No self-respecting girl will have you if you put on more weight," Temari snorted in a rather unfeminine manner.

"Ah, young lady! Would you like to try this?" an old man asked as he ladled stir-fried vegetables out of a pan. Temari paused to stare at it critically.

"What is that?" she asked finally, giving in to her curiosity.

"It's cauliflower, miss. Haven't you eaten it before? The youth of today… you people don't care about health at all. Try some. It's very healthy… it contains lots of vitamins. Plus, it's on sale! What more could you ask for?" he rattled off his sales spiel quickly. Temari considered for a moment.

"Let me try some of it, Ojiisan," she requested. He put a large spoonful into a tiny cup and handed it to her, along with a dessert fork. She tasted it, and nodded in approval. "Tastes good enough. I'll have three hundred grams of it, Ojiisan," she decided. A wide grin split the man's face, and he tied up the stalks of cauliflower in a bag and passed it to her.

"Thank you for your purchase!" he chanted. Temari plunked it into the basket she had forced Kankuro to carry, and consulted her shopping list.

"Eggs next…"

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"Gaara, help!" Kankuro cried pathetically as his younger brother, Kazekage of the Sand, stepped into the house. He gave them a blank look, then realized that his siblings were in a rather… strange position.

Kankuro was leaning off his chair, trying to get away from the spoon Temari wielded. There was some funny gooey white substance on it, which looked rather suspicious. Gaara couldn't blame Kankuro for trying to run away; after all, the brothers shared an aversion to vegetables. Something which Temari didn't approve of.

"Welcome home, Gaara! I made dinner today, come and try some of it," Temari chirped. Gaara nodded to her, and hesitantly seated himself at the table. Temari produced a plate out of nowhere, and dumped a large portion of those strange white vegetables, plain steamed rice and seaweed onto it before handing the whole thing to him, along with a spoon. He stared at it blankly for a moment, then winced.

"I… I want to take a bath first," he said emotionlessly. At his words, Temari's upper lip trembled. "You don't want to eat my cooking!" she pointed an accusing finger at him. Gaara restrained the urge to bang his head against the wall. Damn. If he still had Shukaku sealed within him, he wouldn't bother to grace Temari with a reply, but after all, she was his sister… Sometimes, he wished that he was an only child. At others, he was thankful that he had his siblings, because he wasn't so lonely without them.

"Temari… I need a bath." He sighed.

She pushed him down into the chair and reached for her fan warningly. "Eat now."

Gaara heaved a sigh again, and prodded the white thingies with his spoon suspiciously. "What's this?"

"It's cauliflower. Good for your health, I heard."

Gaara rose to his feet abruptly and dashed up the stairs. "I'm feeling sick today, I won't need dinner," he called back over his shoulder, and rapidly dodged into his room and locked the door.

"But, Gaara!" Temari shouted after him. Snarling, she resolved to find a way to get him to eat it. After shoving everything down Kankuro's throat, she retreated to her room to make plans.

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Temari opened up her journal, and picked up her favorite pen.

_Operation Health : Get Gaara to Eat Cauliflower_

_Plan 1: Sneak into his room at night and just shove it down his throat._

_Plan 2: Pound it into tiny pieces and mix it into his rice._

_Plan 3: Mash it and mix it into his double chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream._

_Plan 4: Threaten to reveal his whereabouts to his hordes of fangirls if he doesn't _

_----------_

It was three o'clock in the morning already, and Temari sneaked out of her room in the darkness, not daring to switch on a light. She crept to the kitchen and retrieved a bowl of the left-over cauliflower, and made her way to Gaara's door. At her touch, the door swung wide open, and Temari frowned. It wasn't like Gaara to leave his door unclosed properly…

"Temari, what are you doing?" a voice asked sleepily behind her.

Temari spun around instantly, hiding the bowl behind her back.

"Ahahahahaha… hi, Gaara! I, uh, thought you might be, uh, bored and uh, I, uh, came to, um, play with you!" Temari made up a lie on the spot. Gaara blinked again, fully awake now. "Play… with me?" he repeated suspiciously. Temari nodded vigorously. "I'm not five anymore." Gaara clarified. "Uh, I know, but, uh, you're still my little brother, and so, I, uh, um, just wanted you to know that you're really important to me and I don't know what I'd do without you and Kankuro and I really treasure you both and…" Temari began to chatter inanely. Gaara inspected his sister in suspicion. "Thanks for the concern. I'm fine. Why don't you go back to bed." He brushed past her, and shut the door in her face.

Temari's shoulders heaved in a sigh. "Damn," she muttered to herself.

When she returned to her room, she crossed Plan 1 off the list. Next up – plan two.

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Temari hummed happily as she molded the mixed rice and chopped cauliflower into triangle shapes, traditional Japanese onigiri with a touch of her own. Once she had completed four, she put them into a red lunchbox, before making another four and leaving them in a black container.

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Temari knocked on Gaara's office door, impatiently awaiting the order to enter.

"Come in," Gaara called.

"Hi, Gaara! I made lunch for you!" she sang cheerfully, dancing into the room. Gaara eyed his sister, shaking his head. She was getting really weird.

"Thank you," he said as she set a red box down in front of him. When he opened it, he poked one of the onigiri in suspicion. It was not like Temari to make him lunch without him asking for it. It was even more unusual for her to actually come to his office just to give him food.

He frowned. His eyebrows would have drawn in together, if he had them in the first place. "Temari, why are there tiny white bits of thingies in the rice?" he demanded. Temari laughed innocently.

"Oh, sorry, Gaara. I gave you the wrong box. Here, this is the right one," she gave him the black, plain one instead. When he began eating, she waved goodbye and left, cursing under her breath, scowling heavily.

"Damn! Foiled again…"

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Temari grinned. Well, this would probably work. Gaara was known to shovel his ice-cream so fast down his throat that he never knew what was in it. She had even gone to the trouble of buying his favorite flavor – double chocolate chip cookie dough ice-cream. Humming, she gouged out bits of ice-cream and buried tiny chunks of cauliflower, carefully smoothing out the surface of the creamy substance. She chuckled evilly, knowing that her plan would succeed this time.

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Gaara opened the refrigerator door. He had a sweet tooth, although few people knew about it. He loved ice-cream, although he hated things like maple syrup. He said that it was too sticky. Kankuro pointed out that melted ice-cream was equally sticky. Gaara pointed out that a grain of red-hot sand could burn its way through a man in seven years. Kankuro immediately conceded the argument.

He grabbed the tub of ice-cream off the shelf, and then paused to think for a moment, the cool tendrils of air from the freezer caressing his face lightly. It was too coincidental… yesterday, when he had checked for something he could pig out on, he had found nothing but a few half-rotten carrots, some of that dreaded cauliflower, and a few onions. If it was there, it meant that Temari had bought it.

Gaara stared at the ice-cream tub a moment more, then silently replaced it before heading upstairs to bed.

Clinging Spiderman-style to the ceiling, Temari cursed a blue streak.

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The next day, when Gaara returned from his Kazekage duties, Temari was waiting at the front door, fan strapped to her back as usual.

"Yes, Temari?" he asked warily, seeing that her bright-eyed gaze was directed at him alone.

"You will eat cauliflower or I will set your hordes of raving stalkers on you," she threatened.

He stopped dead in his tracks, shuddering. Goosebumps popped up on his skin instantly.

"Temari… you're not serious, are you?" he asked anxiously.

Temari grinned triumphantly.

"Of course I am!" she proclaimed happily. Gaara's shoulders sagged.

"Fine, fine… later, okay…" with that, he trudged upstairs, feeling that today had just topped his list of worst days of the year. Wait, scratch that. It was the worst day of his life.

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"Now, eat it all up like a good boy!" Temari patted his head, humming happily. Gaara shot her a Glare of Death and Destruction™, which Temari ignored in bliss. How far the mighty had fallen… he had become a cute, obedient little brother, directly opposite the bloodthirsty monster he had been.

He hesitantly raised the spoon, and slowly put it into his mouth. Kankuro moaned as Temari shoved some more cauliflower down his throat.

"Well, Gaara, what do you think of it?" Temari asked, grinning widely.

"I… like it."

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A/N: An utterly pointless crack fic because I felt like it.

I based Kankuro's and Gaara's aversion to vegetables on my friend, gunz.

Reviews would be nice.


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